Share this:

A Syrian-born arms dealer was sentenced in Manhattan yesterday to 30 years in prison for trying to sell Colombian narco-terrorists highly sophisticated weapons – including 15 surface-to-air missiles intended to shoot down US drug-interdiction helicopters.

Monzer al-Kassar, 63, a longtime resident of Spain known as the “Prince of Marbella” for his lifestyle in the glitzy seaside resort, was convicted in Manhattan federal court last November of agreeing to sell millions of dollars worth of weapons to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

The prosecution case was based largely on evidence gathered by two undercover agents who posed as FARC arms buyers and videotaped negotiations in Spain with Kassar and his aide, Felipe Moreno Godoy.

No weapons ever changed hands.

Judge Jed Rakoff said Kassar and Godoy, 60, could not escape the “overwhelming” videotaped evidence of the deal, which also included thousands of assault and sniper rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

Kassar stood to make a $1 million profit.

The two were convicted of conspiring to provide aid and equipment to a terrorist organization, conspiring to kill US soldiers and other charges.

Defense lawyers said Kassar was a legitimate arms merchant who spied for Spanish intelligence.

“I think it’s fair to say Mr. al-Kassar is a man of many faces,” the judge said.

He was arrested at the Madrid airport in June 2007 and a year later was extradited.

A defiant Kassar said the trial would have ended differently if Rakoff had let the jury see classified information that “would prove that years back, 20 years ago, I had saved lives, including Americans and soldiers.”

Kassar has been selling weapons since the 1970s to the terrorist Palestine Liberation Front.